


And Still It Moves

by Abalidoth



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: AU, Drama, F/F, Happy Ending, Romance, character death in backstory, tw: discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abalidoth/pseuds/Abalidoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where the final battle with Amon went differently, Korra has permanently lost her bending. Only Asami can break through to Korra's heart and keep her from making a terrible decision.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Still It Moves

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of a giveaway on Tumblr. Prompt by kogiopsis: "Korrasami, Korra loses her bending and doesn't get it back AU"

I was up past midnight, trying to sort out the shattered remnants of my father’s life, when the phone rang.

I reached over and pulled the earpiece off the hook, wondering who could be calling me at this time of night. My business partners would be asleep; my personal friends were few and far between, and there still weren’t a lot of phones in Republic City yet anyway. “Hello?”

“Asami?” The voice on the other end was familiar, worried. My knuckles turned white on the receiver as I dragged it closer to me. “This is Tenzin.”

“Hi. Uh…” I wasn’t sure how to respond. I hadn’t heard from anyone on Air Temple Island in well over two months. I didn’t even know they had a phone. “Yes. Hi. Is something wrong?”

He didn’t seem to notice my awkward phrasing. “It’s Korra. She wants to talk to you.”

“Korra actually left her room?”

“She slipped a note under the door.”

“Of course she did.” I glanced at the clock on my desk. “I’ll catch the first ferry in the morning, will that work?”

“That should be fine. And… it’ll be good to see you again, Asami.”

I wasn’t quite sure of that. There were too many painful memories on both sides. But Tenzin was a genuinely wonderful person, and I felt more than a little guilty that I had cut myself off from him and his family. In a way, it  _would_ be good to see him again. “You too,” I said after a moment. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I gave a cursory attempt at tidying up the papers on my desk, and just gave up and tried to get some sleep on the cot in my office. Sleep was a luxury for me back then, even on good days. There were always too many ghosts in the past, too many responsibilities in the present, too many worries in the future. But tonight was a worse night than most, and in my tossings and turnings, my thoughts kept returning to Korra.

I hadn’t seen her since Mako’s funeral. She’d been wearing unrelenting black—widows’ garb—and her eyes had been hollow and bloodshot. Korra had hugged me absentmindedly, as if she’d only just realized that I was grieving too. And then she’d disappeared, melted back into the Air Nomad family and whisked back to the temple. Those were gloomy days, not healthy to obsess over, but my brain kept picking at them like a scab.

By the time the sun came up, I still hadn’t really slept. I got up a little earlier than usual so I could at least brush my hair and drink a pot of strong tea before heading to the ferry docks in the port district. I had a first-class table on the ferry, of course. Future Industries had invested heavily in Republic City’s ferry system, and the prestige they had held for my father transferred down to me. I had a nice view of the city out my window, but I was alone, and my mind was on other things.

Korra asking to see me now wasn’t really the sign of her recovery that I had hoped for. For one thing, if she were starting to feel more social she would have called me herself. Having Tenzin call me and arrange a meeting felt…oddly formal. Like she was doing business, not trying to reunite with her old friend. That sort of cold distance didn’t sound like a healthy Korra. Besides, she didn’t like to do things indirectly. If she was being this circumspect about talking to me, it meant that there was something she was  _really_  afraid of.

But she had locked herself in her room for nine months. Whatever had her thatscared wasn’t something that I could easily deal with.

The ferry debarked at the new ferry dock at the back side of Air Temple Island. I was the only one who got off. Tenzin’s family didn’t get many visitors these days, and Tenzin had Oogi if he needed to get into the city proper. I walked past the other passengers, feeling a twinge of guilt at delaying their trips by making the ferry stop here, and stepped onto the footpath. The path wound around the side of the building, and I paused halfway to the front to look at the Temple itself.

I spotted one high-set window with its shutters closed. Korra’s room. She would have a nice view if she opened them; the land outside curved down gently from the temple, blending into a peaceful coastline. It wasn’t quite a beach, but the harbor water was calm and shallow out to a few hundred feet. I looked out that direction, hoping the sight would soothe my anxiety. It helped, a little. I made sure to get a few deep breaths of sea air before I moved on.

When I got inside, Pema was there waiting for me. It hadn’t been that long since I’d last seen her, but she looked quite a bit older. She gave me a quick hug and thanked me for coming, then handed me a tray with a pot of tea and a couple of bowls of soup. “She didn’t eat yesterday,” she told me matter-of-factly. I took the tray gratefully and headed up the stairs for Korra’s room.

Her door was closed. My hands were full, so I knocked with my foot. “Korra? It’s Asami. Are you there?”

There was a muffled, indistinct response that  _might_ have been “come in.”

I pushed the door open with my elbow. Korra was sitting on the bed with her sheets half-draped over her. Her hair was longer than I remembered, but not tied back. It flopped over one shoulder in a tangled mat and hung over her forehead in sad, limp strands. Her eyes were bloodshot and empty, framed by dark circles and new creases, which told me that she hadn’t been sleeping any more than I had. Some of her muscle was missing too; she still had some definition, but it was starting to tip toward lean rather than bulk. In short, she looked awful.

That all made it especially awkward to realize that I still loved her.

It was the sort of quiet realization that stretches a moment out longer, makes a silence fill every corner of your mind. My crush hadn’t been something temporary, spurred by confusion over Mako’s actions; it was a real thing, breathing and whole, continuing on in the void he had left behind. Seeing Korra like this made my heart hurt, made me want to sweep her out the door and to my huge empty mansion, to see if the two of us could mend each other like I’d always dreamed we could. But I didn’t move forward.

I tried to think of something to say. Korra looked at me, but her gaze wasn’t especially piercing. It was just tired. I could have said any number of dramatic things at that moment. Instead, what I settled on was, “I brought soup.”

I thought I could see a shade of a smile. “Pema’s using you as an errand girl?”

“ _I’m_  not going to say no to Pema’s soup, errand girl or not. Are you?”

“Not after I’ve skipped a few meals.” She beckoned me over and sat on the floor. I sat down next to her and handed her a bowl. The soup smelled good. Korra didn’t, but months of self-imprisonment will do that.

There was a moment of awkward silence. I tried to think of something to say that wasn’t about soup. “Your room has a nice view. Why do you keep the shutters closed?”

“I open them every morning, but…” She sighed and shrugged. “It’s never any different. The world’s not changing. So I keep them closed.”

I blinked. I wasn’t really expecting a philosophical answer—especially not out of Korra. If I was going to get her to open up, I’d have to be direct.

“So why’d you want me to talk to you?” I asked between mouthfuls. “I’ve missed you. If something’s bothering you, I want to help.”

Korra looked away. “I wanted to say goodbye.”

“You’re going back to the Water Tribe?”

“No,” she said quietly, not meeting my eyes. “I’m going to kill myself.”

I blinked at her. My father, flawed though he was in many other ways, had wanted me to have the absolute best education available in Republic City. He’d hired expensive tutors with impressive titles for the sole purpose of broadening my horizons. One of those tutors had been a psychologist. She had taught me about depression and suicide; morbid subjects, but fascinating in their own ways. I knew the signs. Maybe not all of them, but enough.

Korra didn’t exhibit any of them. She wasn’t bluffing.

I set my bowl down on the ground with a clink, but I couldn’t hear it through the thudding in my ears. “Please tell me you didn’t just say that.”

“I have to,” she said, her face still turned away.

“I know things seem hopeless,” I said, desperation filtering into my voice. I was suddenly very, very scared. More scared than when I was facing my father; more scared than when Korra had her showdown with Amon. Korra’s speech held a note of resigned certainty. She wasn’t crying out for help, and she wasn’t giving me a chance to talk her out of it. This really  _was_  just her way of saying goodbye. “But anything is better than that. If I have to come over here every day and tell you how much you mean to me, I will!”

“You don’t get it,” Korra said. “I’m not looking for an easy way out of my problems. I don’t  _want_ to die. But I have to, for the sake of the world.”

And with that, something clicked in my brain. “The Avatar cycle.”

She nodded. “I can’t bend. I’m no use to anyone as an Avatar. But whatever earthbender I reincarnate as…” She finished off her soup and set the bowl down on the tray. “I’ve been putting it off for months. I’ll probably  _keep_ putting it off for even longer. But I just thought you deserved to know.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded. “You’re still the Avatar. You’ve saved the city once. There’s no reason you can’t keep doing it. And maybe you could learn the spiritual side of things, and—”

Korra’s eyes flashed. “And what? And let everyone down again? I let my bending get taken. I let Mako die. I let Amon and his lieutenant get away.”

“But you defeated the Equalists. They won’t follow him anymore, not now that they know he’s a bender. In fact, I’m surprised that his lieutenant was even willing to escape with him.” There must have been something more going on there than Korra had told me about, but I didn’t press the issue. I rubbed my forehead. “Korra, what you did was far more than anyone could have expected. I know what you’re going through.” She opened her mouth to answer, but I held up my hand. “No, you’re not cutting me off this time. I went through months of wondering what I could have done about my father. If I should have noticed something sooner. If there was something I could have said to prevent him from working with Amon.”

“You don’t have the same kinds of duties I do,” Korra said wearily.

“I have Future Industries. If I wasn’t able to save my father, do I have any right to be running his company?”

“That’s not the same at all,” she argued. “I’ve got no bending. How can I expect to maintain balance in the whole world as a non-bender?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Right. Because non-benders are completely useless drains on society, is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s—that’s not what I meant,” she said quickly. “But…Avatar Aang defeated Ozai in a bending battle before he was able to use energybending on him. And Avatar Kyoshi  _made_ an  _island_ for the sake of protecting her people. Bending is necessary to maintain balance – that’s why the Avatar has to be such a powerful bender.”

“We live in a different age. Aang didn’t have Satomobiles. Kyoshi didn’t have radios. Bending was the most powerful force in the world  _back_   _then_ , but that’s just not true anymore. You can still be an amazing Avatar and do impressive things without your bending.”

Korra glared at me. “I thought you of all people would understand. But you sound just like your father.”

If I had been in a rational state of mind, I would have seen that remark for what it was—a scared young woman struggling to cope with a problem she couldn’t attack head-on. I could have deflected, defused, kept the conversation going. But I was far from clear-headed, and I don’t take well to personal attacks. I stood up, leaving a half-eaten bowl of soup behind me on the floor, and walked out of the room without another word.

I started crying on the way down the stairs. These were angry, frustrated tears, more snarling than sobbing. I felt like I’d been smashing my head against a stone wall for an hour, and I just wanted to get off the island and go stew in my office for the whole day. Tenzin had other plans, though. He came out of nowhere as I was heading out the door, wrapped me in a quick hug, and steered me towards the kitchen before I had a chance to protest. I got dropped in a chair with not much memory of how I got there.

Tenzin sat patiently and waited for my crying jag to subside a little. It took a while for me to be able to talk. I told him what Korra had said, word for word. His face grew more and more lined as I went, until he finally cut me off with a sigh.

“This is not surprising,” he said. “I’m sad to see that my fears were justified, but…I had a feeling that she was going to come to this conclusion eventually.”

“Is it true, what I told her? About being able to discover the spiritual aspects of being the Avatar without her bending?”

“I don’t see why not,” Tenzin said. “Amon blocked her energy flow, but there’s nothing that bloodbending could do to disrupt the Avatar’s inner nature. She…just needs something to live for, but she’s rejecting the whole world. I really don’t know what to do.”

“I want to be there for her. If she…if anything happens.”

He nodded. “Of course. I’ll give you a call if her behavior changes. She said she wanted to talk to the others, too, but that you had to be the first.”

I would have stayed longer, if only to help reassure Tenzin, but I had to get out of the temple. Every decoration, every painting, brought my memories spinning back to Korra again, throwing me off balance. I stood up and hugged Tenzin again before heading out to catch the next ferry.

As the seaside path took me past Korra’s window, I glanced up. The shutters were still closed.

xxx

I moped around the office for the next two days—watching the phone, avoiding paperwork, scaring the night staff. I slept in my cot for a couple of hours at a time. There was an apartment in downtown Republic City in my name, but I didn’t like being there any more than I liked being at the cold, empty Sato Mansion.

I eventually forced myself to be social for the sake of my weekly lunch with Bolin and Chief Bei Fong. Those two, more than anyone else, had helped me come to terms with Mako’s death and Korra’s isolation, and I liked to think that I’d done the same for them.

The cafe that we always met at was one of the oldest and nicest in Republic City. Chang’s had started out as a teahouse, before Republic City, even before Fire Nation colony days. They served old-style Earth Kingdom food with a modern kick, and the whole place was decorated with authentic Earth Kingdom antiques. The centerpiece, preserved in a glass case in the middle of the restaurant, was a suit of genuine Kyoshi Island armor. I always paid for all three meals in advance; my income dwarfed that of even the Chief of Police and  _especially_ thatof a rookie metalbending cop. So I didn’t want either of them to worry about it.

They were both subdued when they came into the cafe. Bolin was doing his best to stay chipper—he knows how important it is for  _someone_ to keep the mood up when tragedy strikes—but I knew him well enough to see that he was really working at it. Lin, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to punch something. The were both in uniform, but Lin’s was modified so that she could don it without metalbending.

“Hi, Asami!”

“Hi, Bolin. Hello, Lin.” They pulled out their chairs and sat down. “I take it you’ve spoken to Korra?”

“Some speaking happened, yes. But I wasn’t the one doing it.” Lin unfolded her napkin angrily. I hadn’t even known that was a thing you could  _do_ angrily, but she managed. “That girl just doesn’t listen. She’s too busy being caught up in this selfish delusion of hers to let anyone else talk.”

“Selfish?” I said. “I was thinking that most people would consider what she’s doing to be self _less_. Bone-headedly selfless, maybe.”

“She’s expecting her reincarnation to just pop up in twenty years and do her job for her, instead of doing what she can while she’s still here. That’s selfish.”

“I can’t believe she’s just giving up like this,” Bolin said. “She just kept saying that I wouldn’t understand, I hadn’t lost my bending.” He metalbent his fork from one hand to another across the table. “I told her I’d gladly give it up to have my brother back.”

“Your form is sloppy,” Lin chided him absentmindedly. “But yes. She’s too self-focused. I hate to say it, given all she’s been through, but it’s true.”

“I keep hoping she’s just going to wake up one day and…snap out of it, or something,” I said.

“That’s not how trauma works,” Lin said. “It requires help, and having something to do while you’re recovering. Korra  _can_ heal from this, but she’s not going to do it while she’s living like a hermit.”

“I never could have started to deal with Mako’s…” Bolin looked away. “With Mako, if I hadn’t started training with Lin.”

“And it helped  _me_ to have someone to train.” Lin gave him a rare smile. “I suppose it’s hypocritical of me to accuse Korra of passing her responsibilities on to her reincarnation while I’m busily training my own replacement.”

“Yeah, but it’s like she’s trying to replace  _me!_  I mean, the next Avatar is going to be a male earthbender, right? We already have one of those!” Bolin grinned and puffed out his chest.

I laughed. Like I said, Bolin knows how best to defuse a gloomy situation. “That would make sense if you could bend anything other than earth. And metal, I guess.”

“No big deal.” He shrugged. “I can just use some of your technology to make up the difference.”

I winced, remembering the help I’d offered Korra, but Bolin didn’t seem to notice. He glanced around. “And speaking of technology, I really should have gone to the bathroom earlier so I didn’t have to use the fancy toilets they have here. I’ll be back in a sec.”

I smiled serenely. “Thank you for using another fine Future Industries product.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Maybe.”

He shook his head at me and I shooed him away good-naturedly. Lin turned to me as soon as he was gone. “Are you going to be alright?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’m losing a friend. It’s going to be hard.”

“Right. Just a friend. A friend that you look at the same way that you always looked at Mako? A friend who wanted to talk to  _you_  before anyone else?”

“So you…know about that.” My throat was dry; I took a sip of water, but it didn’t help much. “Is it from, ah, personal experience?”

Lin snorted. “It’s not like I took a vow of chastity after Tenzin. I’ve had lovers. Not all of them were male.”

I made a mental note to talk to her about that. Later. “Wait, you think there might be some significance to Korra talking to me first?”

“You’re asking if she reciprocates?” Lin shrugged. “All I’m saying is, if she thought any of us could give her a way out of this…well, she turned to  _you_ first. She was looking to you for something. Maybe a solution.”

“I  _gave_ her a solution. She didn’t listen to me.”

“It sounds like you gave her a  _plan,_ ” Lin said. “If it’d been you in that situation, or Tenzin, words might have been enough. But Korra is like me, and I wouldn’t be satisfied until you proved that you could carry your solution through.”

I sat back. “I had guessed as much. But I just can’t think of anything. Do you have any ideas?”

“If I did, don’t you think I would have told you already?” Lin raised an eyebrow. “Or dragged the girl out of that horribly gloomy room myself?”

“So I’m back where I started.”

She made a thoughtful noise, but didn’t answer. We avoided the topic from then on. Bolin came back and we ordered our meals, talking about current events and the state of the city. Lin and Bolin talked about a few cases that they had worked lately, and I gave as much input as I thought I could give. As I worked my way through a plate of dumplings, I noticed that Bolin seemed to be distracted by the historical memorabilia on the walls. I asked him what was wrong.

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “It’s just that it’s sad to think that Korra’s just going to be reduced to memories on a wall like this somewhere. Gone, except for the things she left behind.”

 _The things she left behind…_  I craned my neck, looking back towards the center of the restaurant. The Kyoshi armor was there, standing sentry over the other relics of the past. It may not have been Kyoshi’s armor, but it was a relic of her legacy, just like the stories that were still told about her. And those stories still had power. Suddenly, like a bolt of firebender’s lightning, a plan appeared in my mind.

“I’m not going to let her become a relic,” I said. “But I have a lot of work to do before sunrise, and only a few hours to do it.” I stood up and grabbed my pocketbook out of my purse. I knew how to save Korra—but it wasn’t going to be easy. Or cheap.

xxx

This is what Korra saw when she opened her window the next morning, trying to convince herself the world would never change.

It was a bright, overcast day. The ubiquitous light banished all shadows into penumbral fuzziness, lending the seascape the air of an impressionist painting. The broad brushstroke of the shore and the sparse stippling of grass gave way to a hazy watercolor sea, blending out towards the gray horizon. But there in the ocean, like a knife-slash through the canvas, was a dark blotch of land where there shouldn’t have been one.

It was an island. A  _new_  islet, dredged in a matter of hours from the coarse sand around Air Temple Island, and formed into a flat mound that was just high enough not to wash away with the tide. Standing on the island was a Future Industries Satomover MV-5560 Heavy Lifting Mech Unit, equipped with amphibious mod pack and dredge net attachments. It was blotchy with dried saltwater, and almost all of the paint had worn off. The pilot compartment was hanging open, the canopy tilted toward the hidden sun.

Next to the mech was its pilot, a tall slender girl with dark hair that tangled all the time, and green eyes that her dad said she got from her mom, and a serious crush on the Avatar that made her do stupid things sometimes. Her face was painted white, and she stood tall in an extremely expensive set of antique Kyoshi Island armor that Chang’s Restaurant was very reluctant to part with. She was trembling with fatigue, weary for sleep, and scared out of her mind.

Korra didn’t see all that detail, though. She was a pragmatic sort, and her window was only open for a few seconds. She saw the island, she saw the mech, and—the only thing I cared about—she saw me.

xxx

When I saw Korra’s window open for a few seconds and close again, I started to worry. Of course she had seen me, but was I too late? Did she not care? Did she think that that she was hallucinating?

After a moment, though, I saw Korra come running down the path beside the Air Temple. She was barefoot, and her hair whipped out behind her in a mad tangle as she dove into the water from the beach. It was good to see her swimming—it was something she could do without her bending. Her shoulders still held power despite weeks of disuse, and she cut through the water with ease.

She pulled herself up, soaked and winded, onto the shore of my island. I wanted to run to her, to help pull her up, but I didn’t trust myself to walk in the armor on absolutely no sleep without falling all over myself. So I let her come to me, trudging through the wet ground until she was just a foot or so from my face.

“You made an island for me.”

“I made an island for you. Without bending.”

“What are you trying to prove, Asami?”

I looked into her eyes. Some of the spark was back in them, like light flickering at the end of a long tunnel. In my mind, I reached for it, borrowed some of her strength.

“I’ll be your Kyoshi,” I said. “I’ll make islands, and move mountains, and spit fire for you. I can be your bending. All I need is for you to be my Avatar.”

Korra looked down. She was silent for a moment, and after a little while I heard soft sniffles mixing with the sound of the waves. “I don’t think I can be the Avatar,” she said hoarsely. Her eyes flicked back up to me as she blinked away her tears. Korra stepped closer, close enough that I smelled salt, close enough that I could see her shift a little with nervousness. “Not now, not when I still have too many failures to think about.”

“Then, if you can’t be the Avatar, can you at least be Korra of the Water Tribe?”

She nodded, carefully, brows furrowed as she tried to figure me out. “But I don’t know why you’d want me to be that person.”

“Because she means a lot to me, and isn’t letting anyone help her.”

“She’s spent too much of her life trying to be the Avatar, and that didn’t end very well.”

“It ended with you standing on a brand-new island with a girl who’s head over heels for you,” I said. It was cheesy, I know. Blame it on the sleep deprivation. “Seems like things went pretty well to me.”

Korra’s eyes widened. “You…head over heels?”

“Completely. And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, but…Korra, I need you in my life. The world needs you, and the city needs you too, but I really don’t care about any of that right now. I just care about  _you_.”

Korra stepped forward and kissed me like she was afraid I’d disappear. It was short and sweet, and she tasted of salt and ocean spray. When she broke off, I could see just a hint of a smile. “That’s awfully selfish of you, Asami.”

“Blame it on the privileged upbringing,” I retorted, and kissed her again. The next thing I knew, my white face paint was smudged all over her cheeks and her head was awkwardly cradled against my armored shoulder.

It wasn’t much to see, from the outside. Just two girls clinging to each other on a raft of wet sand out in the middle of Republic Harbor. But it was important, and to this day I swear that I felt the earth move.


End file.
